The day before Pako Ayestarán flew to Singapore to meet the Valencia owner Peter Lim and discuss becoming the manager at Mestalla, he phoned Gary Neville to ask for his blessing. Neville was the one who had taken him there in the first place, after all, the man who had publicly insisted “when I go, Pako goes”, and now Ayesteran was about to take his job. It was an “awkward” phone call but, if the Englishman wasn’t entirely pleased, he told Ayestarán to go for it. He also told Lim that his former assistant was the best man for the job. At the time, the new manager was grateful. He might not be so sure now. They might not be, either.
Six months on, Valencia are bottom of the table, the only side without a single point. On the eve of their opening game of the new season Ayestarán promised “we’re going to enjoy it” – but no one is enjoying this. Four games later, they’re the worst team in Spain, and he’s the worst manager in their history. That’s what the statistics say, anyway. Mario Kempes, meanwhile, says this: “What’s happening to Valencia is very worrying; there’s no project, no ideas, just pure footballing impotence.” Which would be bad enough anyway but Kempes isn’t just arguably Valencia’s best player ever; he’s also their ambassador.
Kempes represents the club, or is supposed to. If what he said was telling, the fact that he said it was even more so: a portrait of the way things sometimes are at a club where Neville admits feeling people greeting him with looks that said “you won’t be here for long”; where, if they did, they were right. On Sunday night Kempes backed the coach … and then made a pitch for his job. It is one he thinks might become available again soon, and he is not alone.
Ayestarán is under pressure for sure. Over the last seven seasons, Valencia’s position after four games reads: sixth, third, third, first, sixth, second, second. This time, they’re 20th, bottom of the pile. Played four, lost four, conceded 10. It is the joint-worst start in their history. The last three teams to start like this – Osasuna, Sporting and Xérez – all went down. Away at Athletic Bilbao is never easy but this time it was set up as the game they had to win; a “final” already, with 34 games still to go. As one paper put it, they were obliged to wipe out that zero by their name. They didn’t: two goals from Aritz Aduriz saw them defeated 2-1 at San Mamés.
This is Valencia’s joint-worst start ever yet, oddly, despite the results it hasn’t all been bad. Not that bad, anyway.
“It’s hard to know what’s missing,” goalkeeper Diego Alves said on Sunday. “In every game we have shown that we have the qualities to win, but we have no points,” Mario Suárez noted. Luck always feels like a desperately weak explanation for anything but it plays its part. Las Palmas coach Quique Setién admitted that Valencia deserved more when his side beat them 4-2 on the opening night; the week after they should have been four or five up by half-time against Eibar, but lost 1-0 to a Pedro Len penalty; and the week after that they came from 2-0 down to equalise against Betis, and could have won it before conceding a late goal. On Sunday, they went a goal ahead inside three minutes.
Yet again, though, Valencia were fragile; defensively they have been appalling, mentally they appear weak, belief slipping away. Mistakes are damaging them; more of them individual than systemic. Opponents find space too easily. It doesn’t take much to create chances against them. They do not compete: “Even their milk teeth haven’t come through yet,” as Cayetano Ros put it. Centre-backs Ezequiel Garay and Eliaquim Mangala arrived on the final day of the transfer window but they have not yet remedied their ills – Garay was injured on Sunday, while Aduriz destroyed Mangala. There is little real control in the middle, and up front they miss chances. Against Athletic it was just the one, but it was a clear one.
And so here they are; here the manager is, under pressure. It is not just this season, either. Valencia lost the last three games of last season too. Seven consecutive defeats is their worst ever run. Over the last eight games, Valencia’s record reads: lost seven, drawn one – their last win was back in April. It is not just the results that matter but the reaction they provoke; the instability is inescapable. That filters into the dressing room; Mestalla is treated as transient by many of them. There is something about the culture, the structure, that Neville believed was not conducive to sustainable success. Not yet, at least. The manager, certainly, is at risk of becoming a passing presence – and accepted as such, a short-term solution that is increasingly not a solution at all.
Kempes said that the manager should be supported, but then he tweeted: “To all those asking: I’d do it with all my desire if they asked me to.” Soon, Ossie Ardiles was offering himself as assistant: “I’ll go with you,” he wrote. The former striker Fernando Morientes called Kempes’s words “unethical”. Meanwhile, over at Super Deporte, they were running a poll. Was it necessary to sack Ayestarán? Not desirable, necessary; 90% said yes. “PaKO,” they called him. Valencia are looking at alternatives, reports say. Whether it’s actually an alternative is another matter. “It’s not about the manager,” the former goalkeeper Santiago Cañizares insists. “The situation disgusts me,” says the former captain David Albelda.
Valencia have had eight managers since Unai Emery departed in the summer of 2012 season. Since Lim took over in October 2014, they have had Pizzi, Nuno and Voro (as caretaker), then Neville – whose arrival was presented, damagingly, more as a favour to a friend than the arrival of the ideal coach – and then Ayestarán. Under him, Valencia have picked up 10 points from a possible 36; under Neville, the man he replaced, and the man who replaced Nuno, they picked up 14 from 48. That’s 0.29 points a game under Neville, 0.27 under Ayestarán. So much for his sacking solving things; so much for any sacking doing so. With each of the last three managers things have got worse, Valencia are becoming the old lady who swallowed a fly.
Like his predecessors, Ayestarán works with what he has been given and within an environment not entirely of his own making. “I didn’t say I was happy with the squad,” he pointed out last week. This summer Valencia’s best player departed early. Their captain and top-scorer left a few days after the president said he wouldn’t. The centre-back who was not for sale got sold. The centre-backs who were for sale didn’t. They tried to get rid of their goalkeeper but couldn’t – now he’s first choice again. Their former captain said he wanted to go too, but they wouldn’t let him. He was isolated until he apologised. Garay and Mangala arrived – two more Mendes men to replace the last two, who failed. And the starting centre-backs in the B team couldn’t be temporarily called up to the first team because they are over 23.
And yet, take a step back and the summer business actually does not look bad. Financial regulations forced them to sell and they sold pretty well; over €100m was raised and they managed to get rid of some players they saw as problematic. On the face of it, the squad is reasonably strong; there are good players there. The football has not always been bad, even if the defending has. It doesn’t look good, no – this is a team that should aspire to a Champions League place and it’s bottom of La Liga instead, one whose results have been poor going back five months now, and where the explanations don’t always convince – but then the last time they began with four defeats they finished third and reached the Champions League final.
After Sunday’s defeat the first question was direct: “Are you capable of turning this around?” Ayestarán’s lips moved but no words came out until the man sitting next to him flicked the switch. The microphone was on now, so Ayestarán repeated himself. “Totally,” he said. “Both me and the players.”
Talking points
• Leganés’s posters advertising the visit of Barcelona on Saturday ran with the slogan: “Let God decide”. Below was a picture of Leo Messi. God – Dios - was spelt with a 10 in it: d10s. And “God” did decide too. Well, him and Luis Suárez and Neymar anyway. “We weren’t that interested in possession,” Luis Enrique admitted as Leganés pressed high, making life difficult for a team with Ivan Rakitic in deep midfield and a three-and-four-man defence (three in attack, four when attacked) in which Javier Mascherano was uncomfortable on the right; what they were interested in was releasing the front three … and they did the rest. Rafinha scored too: and it was a beauty.
• Not as much of a beauty as Nicola Sansone for Villarreal, mind you: from 52 metres away. Woof! Mind you, Aduriz’s second for Bilbao was lovely, as was Gabriel’s free-kick – the first ever top-flight goal Leganés have scored at Butarque. And while Momo got a penalty for Las Palmas, the 18-man move that led to it was pretty impressive.
• Then there was Antoine Griezmann, who went all Messi on everyone at the Calderón, scoring two – the second brilliant – and taking Sporting apart. “He was the best player in Europe last season, without doubt,” his coach Diego Simeone said.
• Betis-Granada. Wild and brilliant.
• Sirigu, Mercado, Rami, Carriço, Kolo, Kranevitter, Ganso, Kiyotake, Correa, Ben Yedder, Vietto … Sevilla’s starting XI against Eibar this weekend – and the first all-foreign team ever to line up in La Liga.
• “Zidane is my idol,” said James Rodríguez. Talking up the boss isn’t a bad plan. Scoring a lovely opening goal on a difficult night for your team is an even better one, and that’s what James did away at Espanyol, where Madrid didn’t play well but did win … and where that’s now 12 different players who have scored for them so far this season.
Results: Athletic Bilbao 2–1 Valencia, Atlético Madrid 5–0 Sporting Gijón, Eibar 1–1 Sevilla, Espanyol 0–2 Real Madrid, Las Palmas 1–0 Málaga, Leganés 1–5 Barcelona, Osasuna 0–0 Celta Vigo, Real Betis 2–2 Granada, Villarreal 2–1 Real Sociedad. Monday: Alavés v Deportivo La Coruña.
View all comments >
comments
Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion.
This discussion is closed for comments.
We’re doing some maintenance right now. You can still read comments, but please come back later to add your own.
Commenting has been disabled for this account (why?)